Macros in Source fields (was: Re: Prelink success story :))

[Matthias Saou]

Michael Schwendt wrote :

> All that has been pointed out is that reviewers appreciate ready-to-use
> URLs, which they can cut'n'paste into console or browser to fetch a
> tarball from upstream. It has been pointed out that some packagers
> tend to obfuscate URLs with macros to a degree that is far from smart,
> e.g.
> 
>   Source0:  http://foo.bar/%{name}/%{version}/%{name}-%{version}rc1.tar.gz
> 
> and that is bad taste and bad style. Or it turns out, the URL hasn't been
> updated or verified in a longer time and is not true anymore.

I get the point for the reviewers, but have to disagree about "far from smart"
as well as "bad taste" and "bad style". RPM building is architectured around
macros and macro expansions, and I find it to be what gives the real interest
in creating spec files, then RPM packages.

Take out the "rc1" from the above URL, and I find it to be very smart, plain
taste (well, what do you expect, we're dealing with computers here) and
typical spec file style. Oh, yes, I have some of those. Why? I just change the
version tag above when i know a new version is available, and don't even need
to go get the source file manually with an http or ftp client, not even a
single copy/paste is required. And as an extra added goody, I get to be sure
the URL is still correct (see my previous email about mach).

Of course, YTMV(*), and that's perfectly normal.

Matthias

* YTMV : Well, see previous mail too :-)

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